She was already an established name in the traditional music form as a young teenage member of the Nan Sheng Conservatory in Tainan. But the duties of a household took preference over performance, and Tsai went into what seemed to be permanent retirement immediately after her marriage in her 20s.
Fortunately for the world of music, after a full 15 years of not singing, Tsai's former colleagues urged her out of retirement in 1979. Her return to prominence was meteoric. With virtually no negative influence from her long absence from the complexities of Nan-kuan music, Tsai was once more captivating audiences. Before long, her uniquely beautiful voice had become legendary not only in her native Taiwan, but throughout Asia and Europe as well.
Tsai Hsiao-yueh was born in Tainan in 1941. At first there was nothing about her childhood interests that indicated any particular musical ability or even interest. Like many other children in Taiwan at the time, she often attended performances of local Taiwanese opera with her family, for there was not much in the way of other entertainment available during the early post-war years. Her mother also occasionally took her to see Nan-kuan performances, for there was a family connection: an older brother was an active member of a local Nan-kuan conservatory.
When Tsai was 14, her mother urged her to join a Nan-kuan group. At this time there were several of the amateur groups to choose from, but Tsai had the good fortune to study under the famous teacher Wu Kuang of Tainan's Nan Sheng Conservatory. But she joined the group more out of filial submission than personal inclination.
"I found it terribly difficult at first," Tsai says of her early studies. "My teacher didn't start me with short ballads, but long opera pieces. At first I couldn't sing the lines right, and had to keep repeating them over and over."
In fact, before Tsai could even start singing, she had to learn to say the lines, not in the way of normal speech, but as one would recite a rhymed poem. The musical requirements of Nan-kuan singing are complex, and there are many difficult rhythms to be mastered. Wu was noted for being a strict teacher, and he taught in the traditional manner by reciting or singing each line, then having his student repeat words, sounds, and rhythms exactly. If Tsai's version was just the slightest bit off, she would have to repeat it over and over until correct, for only when one line was learned perfectly could a new one be studied. Despite the arduous effort, and her teacher's uncompromisingly high standards, Tsai praises his method and attitude: "I was my teacher's youngest student, and he was especially kind to me."
Much to everyone's surprise, within less than a year Tsai had made tremendous progress, and was impressing people with a fluid and beautiful Nan-kuan singing that was far more advanced than would normally be expected from her limited time of study. People started to take notice of her remarkable progress, and one of the local Peking opera troupes even tried to enlist her as a principal performer.
"At that time the Nan Sheng Conservatory was located in the Pao An Temple," Tsai recalls. "There were three different performing groups associated with the temple, the Nan Sheng Conservatory, a Taiwanese opera troupe, and a Peking opera troupe. Members of the Peking opera troupe heard my singing, and asked if I wanted to join them from time to time. I was very tempted to do so, but my teacher wouldn't allow it. He said that the two styles were too different, and that singing Peking opera would influence my studies in Nan-kuan. I had no choice but to give up the idea."
The following year, Tsai made her first recording; at age 16 her amateur career as Taiwan's top Nan-kuan performer was on its way. She started performing regularly with the Nan Sheng Conservatory, and by the time she was 18, she was asked to perform in the Presidential Office for then President Chiang Kai-shek on the occasion of his birthday. The next year, she accompanied the Nan Sheng Conservatory to the Philippines for a well received series of performances for the overseas Chinese communities there.
But no sooner had this bright new star appeared in the skies of traditional Nan-kuan music, it abruptly disappeared. Just as Tsai had shown her respect for age-old Chinese social obligations by starting her studies in Nan-kuan at her mother's urging, she left the Nan Sheng Conservatory for similar reasons. Her new in-laws did not want her to sing in public, a traditional matter of concern.
Until recent times, women in China, except for low-class song house girls, were barred from appearing on stage for public performances of opera and music. Just as the women's roles in opera were previously acted by men, the performers of Nan-kuan were also all male. Although customs had changed to some degree by the 1950s, public performances by women still had not received overall acceptance throughout Chinese society. It was only a couple of decades later that women singing Nan-kuan became fully acceptable. In fact, female singers are now preferred to males, who now seldom sing Nan-kuan music.
Acquiescing to the role of the dutiful wife which her husband's family expected of her, Tsai agreed to stop performing Nan-kuan. There was a note of irony in the decision. The marriage was essentially an arranged one, and it was because of her father-in-law's enthusiasm for Nan-kuan that he had chosen Tsai as his future daughter-in-law. Before the engagement could be set, however, her future father-in-law passed away. Both Tsai and her mother at different times considered shelving the marriage plans, but finally the marriage went ahead when Tsai and her fiancé actually became good friends. Tsai immediately complied with the wishes of her husband's family by no longer performing Nan-kuan. Four children and 15 years later, it seemed almost certain that Nan-kuan music had lost forever one of its potentially brightest stars.
Then, one day early in 1979, Tsai received a phone call from Hsu Chang-hui, who for quite a number of years has been an instrumental force in preserving traditional Chinese music of all types in Taiwan. He asked Tsai to visit the Pao An Temple at 3:00 that afternoon, without specifying any purpose. But a well-laid plan was in action.
"When I arrived at the Pao An Temple, the entire Nan Sheng Conservatory was there ready to perform," Tsai says. "And Hsu Chang-hui was there also, along with a professional set-up of mobile recording equipment. They said to me 'Let's go, we're going to make a recording of Nan-kuan.' Although I wasn't prepared to sing, much less record, it didn't seem right to refuse, so I went ahead with it."
While the musicians warmed up, Tsai exercised her long dormant singing voice. As everyone took their places, the tension in the air was electric. What would her voice sound like after so many years without performing? Hsu gave the cue; three, two, one…start! The instruments came in, followed by Tsai's voice, resounding loud and strong, as beautiful and mesmerizing as before. In fact, to those present it seemed as if she had never been away. After a 15-year 'sabbatical,' Tsai Hsiao-yueh was back in the fold.
Soon thereafter, in May of 1979, Tsai accompanied the Nan Sheng Conservatory, this time with the consent of her family, to their second concert tour in the Philippines. Tsai was particularly pleased with this second trip, for besides being able to perform again for enthusiastic overseas audiences, she received further artistic stimulus for continuing with her singing. Nan-kuan musicians from mainland China were also performing in the same series of programs in the Philippines, and Tsai was delighted to learn that her singing was already known to them through her records, and that she was highly regarded by Nan-kuan musicians in mainland China.
Because Tsai's four children were all of school age by 1980, she was not as busy at home and began regular rehearsals again with the Nan Sheng Conservatory. By October she was on another trip with the group, this time for performances in Korea and Japan, and then on another tour to Malaysia in 1981. The Asian audiences gave them rave reviews, and the conservatory's tour to Europe in 1982 drew the same results. Nan-kuan was taking its place in the international scene.
Today, Tsai performs regularly with the Nan Sheng Conservatory, and is one of its principal teachers, insuring the continuation of this valuable musical art form by the next generation. She teaches her young wards in the same manner as Wu Kuang taught her, one line at a time, demanding perfection before continuing. Tsai says: "Enunciation is very important. If you don't sing clearly, no one will be able to understand you. Therefore, before I even begin teaching my students to sing, I first teach them to recite the words. This is actually more like the recitation of a rhymed poem than normal speech. When they can recite perfectly, then I teach them to sing. It is a very slow process at first, but as they become more proficient, the speed of progress picks up rapidly. Another advantage of this traditional line by line method is that once you learn a ballad or opera in this way, you never forget it."
Tsai is clearly a testimony to the success of such a method, for she knows over one hundred long and complex ballads and operas by heart. It was undoubtedly the strictness of her early training which enabled her swift and complete comeback, and she trains her students in the same way.
Offstage, Tsai impresses her friends and acquaintances as being very quiet, unassuming, and hospitable. In keeping with the amateur status traditionally espoused for Nan-kuan musicians, she has never let it take the place of her primary responsibilities to her family, and now that she has returned to the Nan Sheng Conservatory that orientation has remained unchanged. Moreover, she has not insisted that her children follow her musical interests, although her daughter can sing some Nan-kuan. "In fact, I never put my own music on the stereo at home. I like all different kinds of music, such as the popular Western music which my children often listen to, but when my husband is home on Sundays, the first thing he does in the morning is to put on my music," she says with a laugh.
Tsai has strong opinions about the future of Nan-kuan music; it is a form that should not be tampered with lightly. "There has been a tendency among some performers [referring to those in mainland China] to modify the traditional style of Nan-kuan. This is a shame because Nan-kuan should be preserved in its original form. To change it to suit present tastes is like redoing an ancient building to conform to modern concepts of architectural design. It should be appreciated for what it is." Tsai fully expects to continue her own work to ensure the unchanged continuation of this ancient musical tradition. "I'll keep singing as long as I have a voice to sing with," she says with a determined tone. For her fans both in Taiwan and world-wide, that is certainly music to the ears.